


cheshire cat in a tree

by shellybelle



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: (sort of), AU - Nursey never went to Samwell, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coming Out, Haus Parties, M/M, NHL Nursey, canon-typical alcohol use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 15:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17748410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellybelle/pseuds/shellybelle
Summary: It's weird how Nursey almost ended up going to college here, and instead he's letting his teammate drag him to a party where he's gonna come out to his captain.(Or: AU where Nursey gets drafted by the Falcs instead of going to Samwell, goes to a Haus party, and accidentally falls [literally] for Ransom instead of having the heart-to-heart with Jack he came there to have.)





	cheshire cat in a tree

**Author's Note:**

> written for Nursey Week 2019 day 4: Taking the Road Less Traveled; canon divergence, retellings

_“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.”_

Lewis Carroll _, Alice in Wonderland_

 

 

“Ey, little Nurse,” Tater says, slinging an arm around Nursey’s neck as they climb out of the car. “Why you so nervous? Never go to college party before?”

 

“I’ve been to parties,” Nursey says, grumbling a little. He’d spent a year in the AHL before the Falcs picked him up this season, and it’s not like he doesn’t have a fake ID, even if the guys are pretty good about patrolling the rookies.

 

(The phrase “just because we’re near Boston doesn’t mean we want another Seguin,” has been tossed around. Nursey still cringes.)

 

“And anyway, it’s a frat house,” he says, grimacing up at the building across the street. Is that a beach chair on the roof over the porch? What...the actual fuck? “I’ve seen movies, Tater, I think I have an idea of what to expect.”

 

“No, they’re nice,” Tater assures him, steering him by the shoulders towards the house, which looks like it’s already vibrating from the bassline of whatever music is thrumming through it. “You like little B, yes? So you will like all the rest!”

 

Nursey makes a face at him, but Tater has two inches and twenty-five pounds on him; when Tater decides to push him somewhere, there’s not much he can do about it. They go up the stairs to the porch, where the door is already opening. Nursey nearly melts in relief to see Jack Zimmermann there.

 

“Zimmboni!” Tater cheers.

 

“Tater,” Jack says, quirking his usual grin. “And Nursey?”

 

Nursey waves “Sup,” he says, trying to play it cool. He and Jack have a weird dynamic--they came on as NHL rookies at the same time, technically, but Jack’s six years older than he is, and has the skills to show for it. There’s a reason there’s already an A on his jersey, while Nursey’s playing second line.

 

(Which: second line in the NHL at his age is _pretty fucking good_ , don’t get him wrong! But still. It’s not like he and Jack Zimmermann are chilling out and playing Mario Kart. The closest thing to a heart-to-heart they’ve ever had was a shared commiseration about travel and time zones fucking with anxiety medication doses. Jack had not been a fan of Nursey’s sleep-deprived “let’s get #TeamTofranil shirts” idea.

 

Buzzkill.)

 

But next to Jack--well, tucked right under Jack’s arm--is Eric Bittle, beaming a hello, and _that_ makes Nursey catch his breath.

 

Nursey likes Bitty. He’s pretty cool, cute if you’re into that kind of aesthetic (Nursey...isn’t), and the pie thing is great. But the thing about Bitty that always makes Nursey feel a little bit dizzy is what Bitty _means_ , specifically what Bitty means in relation to Nursey:

 

That Nursey is not the only queer dude on his team.

 

He hasn’t told anyone yet. He thinks it’s awesome that Jack is out--to the team, and to management, at least; Nursey doesn’t know if they have, like, a _plan_ , or anything like that. But Nursey, who was out all through high school and didn’t exactly keep a damper on things in the AHL and is genuinely fucking _shocked_ that no pictures of him from his once-very-loosely-guarded-and-now-thoroughly-purged instagram have come back to haunt him, is...not out. At all.

 

It’s not like he meant to closet himself back up when he came onto the team. He’d been single when they picked him up, and then with the stress of the move from Hartford to Providence there hadn’t been much time to date, and he doesn’t really like the effort of casual hookups. And since he’s been here, it’s just been easier to stick with girls ( _safer_ , says a judgmental little voice in the back of his head) the few times he’s gone home with people.

 

But he’s sick of it. He feels like he’s missing part of himself, keeping it quiet. He misses making dumb jokes about queer culture and referencing his exes with the right pronouns and painting his nails and all the other shit he used to do, and he’s done.

 

As of tonight, he’s coming out.

 

Bitty greets Tater with his southern sunshine smile, all cheer, and turns it on Nursey, just as bright. “Derek Nurse, what a surprise,” he says. “I didn’t think they let you rookies out to play this late in the season!”

 

“Tater said I needed to party with some people my own age,” Nursey says, bending to return Bitty’s hug.

 

“Well, as long as you at least try to make good choices,” Bitty says, his grin flashing wicked for a moment. “There’s condoms in a jar on top of the fridge. Be responsible. And be careful with the dub juice.”

 

“Bits,” Jack says, looking pained. “He’s underage.”

 

Bitty squints up at him. “Jack,” he says slowly. “ _I’m_ underage.”

 

Jack looks at back him for a long moment, then says something under his breath in Quebecois that Nursey’s private school French can’t decipher before stepping back and giving Bitty a firm nudge back into the pounding house. “Okay, all of you inside.”

 

Bitty laughs and heads in, Tater on his heels. Nursey catches Jack’s arm. “Hey,” he says. “Uh--is there a place we could talk?”

 

Jack raises his eyebrows. “Everything okay?”

 

“Yeah. I just, uh. I have a thing.”

 

It’s awkward in a way Nursey usually isn’t--words are his _thing_ , just like photography is Jack’s and eyeliner is Snowy’s and hugs are Tater’s.

 

To his credit, Jack just nods. “Okay,” he says. “Do you want a drink first?”

 

“Please God yes,” Nursey says fervently. He would very very much like a drink before having the Solidarity Queer talk with his kind-of-peer-kind-of-captain, please and thank you _yes_.

 

Jack laughs and beckons him into the house. It’s louder inside, the overheads off and replaced by string lights and strobes, and Nursey has a vague desire to go on a rant about setting of seizures, but he figures in a hockey frat it probably wouldn’t go over well. The music’s not bad--a radio edit of Nicki Minaj, laid over a pulsing club beat--and Nursey lets it settle over his body, take some of the tension away.

 

Apparently, this is a dumb move. Half-lost in the music and trying to keep track of Jack, he isn’t watching his feet, and in the semi-darkness, he trips into something or someone and nearly goes sprawling.

 

Unlike on the ice, though, where he either catches himself or gets some impressive bruises to talk about later, or anywhere other than the ice, where he’s used to making sudden and embarrassing impact with the nearest hard surface, someone catches him, out of nowhere, an arm coming out of the crowd of people to loop around his waist and grab him like he’s nothing. “Woah,” someone says, the voice barely audible over the music. “You okay, bro?”

 

Nursey steadies himself, then turns around to look at his unlikely savior. He looks down automatically--even after all his time in hockey, anywhere other than the rink, he’s kind of used to being taller than most people. But the guy is his height, and (Nursey’s mouth goes abruptly dry) _gorgeous as fuck_ , all cheekbones and big brown eyes and a shoulder to waist ratio to make Jason Momoa cry. Nursey also kind of wants to know who’s cutting his hair, because that fade is _working_ for him. “Um,” he says eloquently.

 

The guy furrows his brow at him, and then blinks. “Do I know you?” he says.

 

Nursey gets this a lot. “Possibly,” he says.

 

“Oh, _hey_ ,” the guy says, his face breaking out into a grin. And oh, shit, Nursey thinks, his knees going kind of weak, it’s a _great_ grin. “You’re--”

 

“Nursey,” Jack says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “What happened? You get lost?”

 

“ _Nursey_ ,” says Nursey’s savior, and then snaps his fingers. “Oh _shit_ , I was right! Derek Nurse, yeah? Number 28?”

 

Nursey’s face feels very warm. Is it very warm in here? “That’s me,” he says. “Thanks for the assist, man.” What the fuck, he thinks, I’m having a fucking meet-cute on a dirty fraternity floor. He wonders if maybe lightning will strike him.

 

It doesn’t.

 

Cheekbones-from-the-gods laughs. “No problem, bro,” he says. “Shit, consider it a thank you for keeping my countryman here safe.” He reaches out and slings an arm around Jack’s shoulder, and Jack gives him an indulgent little smile.

 

“I see you’ve met Ransom,” Jack says dryly, amusement carrying over the thumping bass. “Nurse, I played with Rans when I was at Samwell.”

 

“Lived with him, too,” Ransom says, and gives Nursey a conspiratorial wink. “I know all his secrets. You want the dirt, you call me.”

 

“Oh, def,” Nursey says. It comes out as a bit of a squeak. Ransom doesn’t seem to notice. Jack definitely does, and cocks a brow at him. Nursey can’t blame him.

 

“We’re gonna grab a drink,” Jack says. “Rans, we’ll see you around?”

 

Ransom throws them a cheerful nod, then pauses, glancing at Nursey. No, Nursey realizes, not a glance, a _look_ , not long enough to be noticed if Nursey hadn’t been paying attention, but he is, so he sees it--the flicker of dark eyes over his body, the slight parting of his lips. Nursey doesn’t preen, but he comes close. He’s not _vain_ , but he knows what he looks like--he’s a professional athlete with a good sense of style and a knowledge of to dress his body, and that would be a good combination on someone even without his face, and...well, he knows he has a good face.

 

He slips his hands into his pockets so that the fabric of his shirt pulls over his chest and makes sure he meets Ransom’s eyes when Ransom looks back up at him, and raises an eyebrow. Ransom smirks. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll definitely see you around.”

 

He’s responding to Jack, but he’s looking at Nursey. Nursey lets his smile turn into a full-on grin. Jack puts a hand on his shoulder. “Alright,” he says. “Come on. We can talk in the kitchen.”

 

The kitchen, it turns out, is off the main party room, blocked off by streams of yellow police line tape and a large piece of poster board with “SMH MEMBERS ONLY, DO NOT ENTER ON PAIN OF DEATH” in sharpie bubble letters. Jack ignores it, moving the poster board and showing Nursey how to limbo through the tape. Nursey absolutely does not film it for his snapchat and send it to Snowy.

 

(He absolutely does film it for his snapchat and send it to Snowy. A man’s gotta live, okay?)

 

It’s a little quieter in the kitchen, enough so that they Nursey can hear himself think again. Jack opens the fridge, rummages briefly, then gives a full-body sigh and comes up with a bottle of beer in one hand and a large pitcher in the other. “If you tell the rest of the team about this, you’re skating suicides for a week,” he tells Nursey warningly, and then takes a red plastic cup off a stack near the sink and pours whatever’s in the pitcher into it. “Here.”

 

“I don’t think you’re in charge of my conditioning,” Nursey says. He peers into the cup. “What is this?”

 

“Team tub juice,” Jack says, opening his beer. “They always keep some back because it’s better cold but not watered down.” He extends the bottle. “Here’s to your first Haus party. Thanks for coming, Nurse.”

 

“Cheers,” Nursey says. He taps his plastic cup against Jack’s bottle, then drinks.

 

And promptly spits the overly sweet liquor back into the cup. Jack bursts out cackling. “What the actual literal fuck,” Nursey sputters. “ _What_. Is in this?”

 

“I don’t know, and I don’t ask.” Jack grins over the rim of his beer. “You never had this before? I thought you went to Andover with Shitty Knight. It’s his recipe.”

 

“We only overlapped a year.” Nursey looks distrustfully at the cup, then shrugs. Whatever, he’s already here. “He’s chill, though. You know I toured here, when I wasn’t sure if I’d go with the draft?”

 

Jack raises his eyebrows. “No, I didn’t.”

 

“Yeah. I missed the main tour because I had a game. The coaches still wanted me, so Shitty told me to come up anyway, showed me around on a Sunday.” He smiles at the memory. It had been fun, just like old times, him and Shitty messing around on the ice.

 

“What made you choose hockey over college?” Jack asks, leaning against the counter.

 

Nursey shrugs. “The league was a one in a million shot,” he says. It’s not the whole story, really, but it’s the short version. “And I’m getting a degree from Brown now, so.”

 

Jack blinks. “Seriously?”  


“Yeah. I mean, just part-time, don’t like, tell anyone or anything. I got a bunch of gen eds out of the way in high school, so.” Nursey clears his throat. “Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

 

“Right, yeah.” Jack sips his beer. “What’s up, man?”

 

Nursey takes a breath. He envies Jack’s ease right now, how relaxed he looks in this space. This used to be home for him, Nursey remembers, and probably still is, sometimes. There are touches of Bitty everywhere; the gleaming oven, the red stand mixer (Nursey has seen its twin in Jack’s apartment), the cookbooks tucked against the wall. He wonders if he’s ever felt that comfortable anywhere, if he ever will.

 

(The beat of the party hums through him, and he lets himself imagine, briefly, another world, another team, where he let Shitty Knight convince him to defer the draft and accept Samwell’s offer. Where he played thirty-four games a season instead of eighty-two, spent his free time reading and writing essays on literary theory instead of doing photoshoots and charity appearances and learning how to be a real person at nineteen. He wonders if he’d click with his partner like he does with Fitzy, or if he’d be in one of those nightmare pairings people gossip about on Deadspin. Wonders if he’d love his goalie as much as he loves Snowy, with his dumbass eyeliner and ridiculous emo music and their shared love of hipster poetry.

 

Wonders what it would be like to spend four more years in a protected bubble, where he could wear what he wanted, dress how he wanted, kiss who he wanted.

 

Wonders what year Ransom is, when he’s graduating.

 

If he’s got a room in this Haus.)

 

“Nurse?” Jack asks, and Nursey startles, brings himself guiltily back to the world. Jack is looking at him, brow furrowed, a little worried. “You okay, man? You need me to get you something?”

 

Nursey shakes his head. “No,” he says, huffing out a breath. This, he thinks, is stupid. Jack is queer. He’s queer. There’s no reason for him to make this a Thing. He ditches the speech he’d typed out on his phone and carefully memorized in Tater’s car on the way here.

 

“Listen,” he says. “Your friend Ransom. What’s his deal?”

 

Jack blinks. “His deal?”

 

“Yeah, like.” Now or never, Nurse, he tells himself. “Was he just being super friendly, or if I go back out there and throw on the charm, am I going to get his number by the end of the night?”

 

Jack opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Says, “What.”

 

Nursey waits. He’s gotten used to this part, in the years since he stopped wearing nail polish and pastel sweaters. (Again: how, how, _how_ has his old instagram not leaked?)

 

Jack pulls it together. He coughs. “Uh,” he says. “Do you _want_ to get his number by the end of the night?”

 

“I mean,” Nursey says. “Ideally I would like to get _more_ than his number by the end of the night, but Tater made it pretty clear he’s putting me on curfew. So I’m willing to start with his number.”

 

“Nurse,” Jack begins. Nursey raises his eyebrows. Jack squints at him, like he’s trying to figure out for sure if Nursey’s fucking around, and then he snorts. “Well, to be honest,” he says. “I’m not sure. But I think if a guy _could_ turn his head, it’s probably you.”

 

It’s Nursey’s turn to blink, stunned, as Jack’s words sink in. “Zim _bon_ i,” he says, delighted. “Are you saying I’m pretty?”

 

Jack’s cheeks go faintly pink, just barely visible in the semi-darkness of the kitchen. He drains his beer. “Absolutely not,” he says. “Because you’re an infant.”

 

“I’m like, a year younger than your boyfriend,” Nursey reminds him.

 

“Don’t remind me,” Jack says. He takes another beer out of the fridge and gives Nursey a firm nudge towards the door. “I have it on good authority that Ransom has a DJ shift starting in five minutes. Booth’s by the back wall of the living room. I can’t imagine he _wouldn’t_ want company.”

 

Nursey grins at him. “You’re the best, Jack,” he says, picking up his solo cup of gross tub juice and turning for the door. Halfway there, he pauses and turns back. “Hey,” he says. “I probably don’t have to even say it, but--this is just between us, y’know?”

 

Jack already has his phone out, but Nursey’s sure he’s only texting Bitty, and Bitty doesn’t even count. His eyes are soft and fond. “Of course,” he says. “I’ve got your back, Nurse.”

 

“Thanks, Cap,” he says.

 

Jack snorts. “Not technically your captain,” he says.

 

“No,” Nursey says mournfully. “If you were, you could tell Tater to ditch the curfew and stop trying to cockblock me.”

 

Jack’s fingers pause on his phone.

 

Nursey gives him a hopeful look.

 

“No,” Jack says decisively. “But I’ll make sure you get his number.”

 

Nursey grins, and goes. The party folds around him. He finds his way to the table by the back wall, where Ransom’s got a laptop plugged hooked up to an impressive set of speakers, running a surprisingly intricate setup--Spotify, Youtube, and itunes all opened at once.

 

“Yo,” he says. “I’m sure you’ve got your playlist, but you want some company?”

 

Ransom looks up, and his face breaks into a grin. “I’d love some.”

 

Nursey slips around the table. Ransom’s wearing a tank top, and his skin is warm and sweat-damp against Nursey’s. When Nursey leans over so he can read the song titles on the playlists, he can smell Ransom’s cologne. There’s something familiar about it, sweet and spicy and good.

 

By the third song of Ransom’s shift, one of Ransom’s thumbs has migrated into the back pocket of Nursey’s jeans, and Nursey is grinning.

 

Samwell student or not, he thinks, this place, right here and right now, is exactly where he wants to be.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> totally unbeta-ed, written mostly during breaks at work. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> awkward romcom inner monologue derek nurse is the best derek nurse, fight me.


End file.
